


Keith and Hobbes

by rvdhoodlum



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Childhood Memories, Gay Keith (Voltron), Gen, One Shot, Orphan Keith (Voltron), calvin and hobbes - Freeform, i mean kind of its not the center of the fic but hes gay, keiths childhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-08
Updated: 2017-11-08
Packaged: 2019-01-31 00:22:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12664497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rvdhoodlum/pseuds/rvdhoodlum
Summary: The small boy put one foot in front of the other as though he wasn’t sure the ground would be there to support him when he landed. A car zoomed by and he shrunk into himself briefly before resuming the pattern. One foot in front of the other, as straight as he could make them, so that when he reached the end of the sidewalk panel he’d be aligned with the crack and wouldn’t have to step extra big over it.or: a chronicling of events in Keith's childhood, written as though he had a stuffed animal friend along for the ride.Based on lovelyartby bun-bun-bum





	Keith and Hobbes

**Author's Note:**

> this is not a happy story. however, i at least tried to make it a true one (in the jumpy timeline format it's in). somewhere along the line keith’s personality and mine sort of got mushed (meaning a few spots are lowkey projections lol sorry) so i guess that means hes a true fave now whoops ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

The small boy put one foot in front of the other as though he wasn’t sure the ground would be there to support him when he landed. A car zoomed by and he shrunk into himself briefly before resuming the pattern. One foot in front of the other, as straight as he could make them, so that when he reached the end of the sidewalk panel he’d be aligned with the crack and wouldn’t have to step extra big over it.

“Free books! Library giveaway! Free books!”

“Come on, Keith.”

A man grabbed the boy’s right arm and pulled him gently towards the library. He stumbled anyway, and struggled to catch up with the man. One foot after another, but faster, until he wasn’t sure whether he was on the right step or the left step or where his feet even were.

The man let go of his arm and Keith reoriented himself. “Go pick out a book, alright? I’ll be right here, browsing.”

He walked off towards a second table full of books and Keith was all alone. Taking a deep breath, he started walking the opposite direction, to the box on the ground that wasn’t on a table too far above him.

Keith sat down next to the box and flipped through the books. He couldn’t read the titles, so when he reached the end he started to flip backwards.

“Can I help you?”

He looked up with wide eyes at the strange woman kneeling down to look him in the eyes.

She smiled kindly at him. “Not the talkative type?”

Keith half shook his head, then looked away shyly.

“That’s ok, sweetheart. Why don’t I find a book for you to read with your dad? Would you like that?”

He nodded, eyes downward. The woman was not deterred by his closed off behavior and flipped through the books herself, humming a song Keith didn’t recognize. When she’d almost gotten to the end she stopped flipping and pulled a thick book out of the box.

“This one’s about a kid and his tiger. _Calvin and Hobbes_. Calvin gets into a lot of trouble. I think you’ll like him; he’s funny, and you might be more like him than you think.”

She offered the book and he took it, opening it and flipping through the pages to hear the _ttthhhhrrrrrrrrwwwaap_ sound. There were pictures on the pages but he couldn’t read the words, so he just flipped through until his dad came back to get him.

“Bye!” said the nice lady to Keith, and he waved at her, but he wasn’t sure if she noticed.

On the walk home he lagged behind his dad a little less, the book hugged closely to his chest, his footsteps crooked, though still never touching the cracks.

  
***

  
Keith wouldn’t let go of the stuffed lion. He held it in his arms, rubbing its paw in his hands.

“C’mon Keith,” his dad said, not doing much to disguise his irritation. “Let’s go.”

Keith stood up and dutifully followed him, but he didn’t go more than a few feet.

His dad sighed. “Honey, you can’t take the lion.”

This was met with wide-eyed confusion.

“Keith, we didn’t pay for the lion. Here, give it to me.”

He tried to grab it from Keith, who immediately recoiled and would not let go. He made a noise of distress and his father let go.

“Ok. Ok,” he said, running his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry. You can keep him, alright? We just have to buy him first. Follow me.”

Keith followed him, at a distance, to the checkout counter. When the cashier asked for the toy so that she could scan the barcode, he still refused to let go, flinching at an attempt to take the lion away. His dad, not wanting to further upset his son, walked to the back of the store and got a second lion for her to scan, and afterwards she gave him a sticker for being “such a sweet little guy.”

When they left, Keith walked next to his dad and hardly had trouble keeping pace.

“What’re you going to name him?” his dad asked. Keith shrugged. “How about Hobbes?”

“Hobbes is a tiger!” Keith laughed, hugging the lion tighter to his chest.

“Well, yeah, _Calvin’s_ Hobbes is a tiger. Why can’t you have your very own friend with the same name?”

Keith’s pace slowed and forehead scrunched up, seriously contemplating this suggestion. “He looks like a Hobbes,” he decided, staring the lion in the eyes.

“Alright,” his dad laughed. “I’m glad to hear it. Nice to meet you, Hobbes.”

“He says nice to meet you too,” said Keith, raising Hobbes in the air so that he and his dad could properly meet, face to face.

Keith’s dad extended his hand and Keith let him shake Hobbes’ paw. Satisfied, he lowered the lion and looked him in the eye again. Keith pulled him tightly into his chest. “We’re going to be _best_ friends.”

  
***

Keith took Hobbes everywhere he went. It was Keith and Hobbes, Hobbes and Keith; they were inseparable. If Keith went downstairs for breakfast, Hobbes came with him and sat in between the crack in the top of the couch cushions, waiting for his friend to finish eating. If Keith went to school, Hobbes came too. (He wasn’t very good at learning and prefered to stay in the backpack, which was fine with Keith, as long as he knew that he was there.)

Sometimes Keith would pretend that he was Calvin. Calvin didn’t really have friends either, except for Hobbes. Calvin had trouble focusing; Calvin was particularly bad at math. Calvin got in trouble all the time, even though he wasn’t a bad kid. Calvin lived in his own worlds, because the real one was so disappointing. Keith could relate.

But Calvin had family, something that Keith was severely lacking, although he knew his dad would be back eventually. It’s not like he’d just leave his own son _alone_ in the world, right?

Keith tried copycat stunts from Calvin’s adventures. He told his first foster mom about the monsters under the bed, but she never believed him, and eventually he was sent away. “Too worried. Too tiring. Always waking us up in the night.” He went camping with the second foster home, but was uncomfortable in nature. The one time he tried to get into something - fishing like Calvin, by whacking the fish with a baseball bat - he was grounded the rest of the trip. “Antisocial. Disobedient. Doesn’t participate unless to cause trouble.” At his third foster home, Keith and Hobbes decided to find Yukon, but he was too new to the neighborhood and got lost in the woods. By the time they found him, four hours later, he was tired, hungry, and soaking wet. He left that home a week later. “A trouble maker. Doesn’t seem to want to live with us. Keeps trying to run away.”

By the fourth foster home, he stopped trying. Keith did was he was told and spent most of his time either with Hobbes or in the library, reading as much _Calvin and Hobbes,_ and the occasional miscellaneous comic, as he could get his hands on.

The library was his sanctuary. He walked as far back as he could, took a left at the stairs that went to the basement children’s section, and then another left to a secluded corner behind the bookcases. It was equipped with a forest green beanbag that had been patched up multiple times, a square stool with swirls in the wood that resembled a bird, and an ideal location next to the reference books where people rarely ventured. The librarians all knew him and let him stay for as long as he wanted. One - Ms. Claire - would bring him cups of cold water and the occasional snack from behind the circulation desk. They had an understanding; she would help keep his corner as private and comfortable as possible, if he never made a mess. Keith never left behind a single crumb.

  
***

“You can’t take that thing everywhere you go, you know,” Diane, the current foster mom, told Keith, not looking at him as she made dinner.

“His name is Hobbes,” Keith told her matter-of-factly, gripping him more tightly by the paw.

“You’re eight years old now; you’re a big boy. It’s time to grow up. You can’t be so dependant on a stuffed animal.”

Keith stood in the middle of the kitchen, ununderstanding. He help Hobbes up to his eyes and stared at him. Hobbes was his best friend in the entire world. Hobbes was always there for him and Diane wanted him to... abandon him? It didn’t make any sense.

He tugged on Diane’s shirt. “Why?”

“Honey, don’t touch me while I’m using a knife,” she said, sparing him a glance of reprimand before continuing to chop up onions. “It’s not healthy, that’s why. Don’t the other kids make fun of you for having a stuffed animal? You won’t get bullied if you don’t keep carrying him around and learn a little independence.”

“Hobbes can take care of the bullies,” Keith said, a justification he’d used before, but this time his voice quavered. _Calvin’s_ Hobbes would take care of the bullies by eating them, sure, but Keith’s Hobbes never did. Keith’s Hobbes was just there for him.

Keith stood there with Hobbes hanging from his arms, uncertain. Diane washed her hands then knelt down to meet his eyes. “Keith, honey, I just want what’s best for you. Do you understand?”

Keith nodded, but he didn’t understand. _Did_ Diane want what was best for him? She hadn’t always been there for him; he barely knew her. If the past was any indicator, she wouldn’t be in his life for much longer.

“Now, why don’t you go play before dinner?”

He nodded again then walked into the other room to talk to Hobbes about what Diane had said. Hobbes didn’t know what to make of it, but didn’t want Keith to stop being his friend. Keith agreed.

Dinner - miso soup - was good, almost like his dad used to make it. After dinner Keith looked for Hobbes to tell him about dinner, but he was nowhere to be found. He asked Diane, but she just said he must have misplaced him.

Keith didn’t misplace him. Keith knew exactly where he’d left Hobbes; to the left of his pillow, the tip of his nose sticking out from under the blanket so that he could breathe. But he looked and looked and Hobbes wasn’t anywhere. Eventually Diane told him to go to sleep, that’d they’d look for him in the morning, and that it could do him good to be away from Hobbes.

Keith didn’t think so. He was so distraught he could barely think, could barely breath, and so couldn’t fight her. Keith lay rigidly and rubbed the corner of the letter ‘L’ on the alphabet blanket and cried and cried until he was so exhausted he fell asleep.

  
***

Keith lost his copy of _Calvin and Hobbes_. It was worn, well loved, having already been used when he got it and enduring much more from Keith. He knew that there were more comics, and he’d read them, but this book was the first one, and it was the most important. Besides Hobbes, it was the last real relic from life with his dad.

The worst part was that there was nothing he could do about it. He’d gotten tougher than the last few times something like this had happened. The world cast him out, so he reciprocated. He tried as hard as he could to make his aura bleed “go away” and, usually, it worked.

This time, clearly, something had gone wrong. He was approached by a group of people, but he didn’t notice because he’d been flipping the pages of his book.

“Hey! Listen to me!”

Keith hadn’t heard him.

“Hey! Don’t ignore me!”

Keith hadn’t been able to speak.

And then… the book was gone. He wasn’t sure when during the exchange it had been taken, but it was gone.

He checked the lost and found bin three times that day, just in case, and once a day for the next week. It was never there. It was funny, Keith thought bitterly to himself, how every time he lost something it never turned up.

  
***

Keith didn’t make friends easily. It’s not that he didn’t want to - because _god_ it hurt to be alone - no, it was that he didn’t know _how_. He’d tried everything, but apparently everything wasn’t enough.

Getting rid of Hobbes clearly wasn’t the solution either. The last time that happened, he’d had an emotion shutdown. Just thinking about it now was unpleasant; he saw himself alone in the corner of the classroom, unable to speak, unable to move, the teacher not understanding, the laughter, the _noise_. The memory made him want to curl inside himself until he’d shrunk into a bubble and _pop_ \- no more memory.

Until middle school, that is. Bouncing from home to home, Keith didn’t have much of a chance to make friends, even if he had been able to. But by the time he got to middle school, he’d found a tolerable foster family; not exactly a home, but as close as he figured it got.

That wasn’t even the most extraordinary part. No, the crazy thing was, Keith made a _friend_ , an actual close one. He and Keith spend every second of the school day together, similarly sidelined by their peers. He didn’t think that spending all of your time at the library was weird (“Nah dude, I agree; it’s better than sports”). He didn’t seem to mind that Keith still had Hobbes (when he worked up the courage to show him); he had just laughed and showed him his stuffed animal, Fishy, who was, unsurprisingly, a fish.

“So original, I know,” he’d said. “That’s why I have _all_ A’s in school.”

He was the one who showed Keith what _potential_ life had. Video games in the basement, how to throw a ball, talking about their futures, hot pretzels at the mall, how to dress fashionably yet aloof, what phrases people say that they don’t really mean, what phrases people say that they _do_.

Keith didn’t quite catch on that “I love you” is one of those things people don’t always vocalize.

It was alright, Keith told himself. He just didn’t understand what Keith meant, and he knew that Keith had trouble communicating. He could backtrack his way out of this, and it would be like nothing ever happened.

He was fine, he told his teacher, who yelled at him for being more bouncy than usual. He just had a little too much energy right now, was all.

It was going to be fine, he repeated to himself in his head, wilfully ignoring the fact that he couldn’t vocalize it.

It was alright. He moved away a month later, anyway.

It was alright, he said. Just don’t get attached from now on. Got it.

  
***

_Creeek_

The boy froze, breath sucked in, praying that no one had heard. But there were no other sounds - of course there weren’t, the tiny creak shouldn’t have disturbed anyone - so he carefully swung his right leg out the window, followed by the left. He reached back in for his duffel bag, lifting it through the window instead of dragging it so that it made no noise. It was wasn’t light, but he handled it with relative ease.

Keith stood up on the slanted roof and walked with tiny footsteps towards the edge. Just one foot directly in front of the other, left then right, left then right, until he reached the edge. Keith gently dropped his duffel off the ledge; it landed with a muffled _whump_. He turned to face the window and bent down. He eased his body off of the roof, being careful to not let go until he was hanging as low as he could get. Then, with hardly a second thought, he let his fingers slip off the edge and fell a few feet onto the ground.

He smiled to himself. He’d learned that particular trick back in grade school when some of the other kids used to pick on him, and before he learned to defend himself; it always hurts less if you fall from the shortest distance possible.

Keith picked the duffel off the ground and unzipped the pocket to check (for the fourth time) that Hobbes was still in there. Thankfully, he was, so Keith was free to run off, run as far as he could to be anywhere but here. There was no life for him in this house.

A draft blew through the window; Keith had forgotten to shut it. It was unusually cold that spring night, and a few minutes later a bedraggled looking woman in a nightgown lurched over to shut it. She closed it half way, muttering to herself, before stopping mid motion as life returned to her body.

“Keith?” She stuck her head out the window. “Keith!”

But he was nowhere to be found, vanished into the night, and the wind buffeted the woman uncaringly as she slowly shut the window and tried to convince herself of all the reasons not to cry.

  
***

It was official; Keith had gotten attached. There had been - still were - nagging thoughts in the back of his head that had told him to turn _back_ , and thank goodness he hadn’t listened. Shiro made him remember that the word “family” meant something.

Shiro let Keith talk, and listened, really _listened_. Shiro was the third person who didn’t think that Keith was stupid for loving Hobbes after all this time. He often tried to surprise him with new _Calvin and Hobbes_ books. (Keith had read all of them, but he appreciated the effort. At this rate, Shiro was going to build him the entire collection, one gift at a time.)

Shiro was patient. He talked to Keith about studying for the Garrison, and Keith absorbed it like a sponge. So Shiro taught him; he helped him study through the denser parts of the math that he’d need to know, and praised him for the skills that came so naturally.

Perhaps most importantly to Keith, he helped Shiro right back. They studied together and trained together. Keith couldn’t always pick up subtle things, but he knew when Shiro was having a bad day. They went walking and coexisted more than anything else; being there for each other was enough. Keith felt - and he knew Shiro would mock punch him in the arm for even thinking this about himself - but he felt like, for once, he wasn’t a burden.

Life was ok. Keith was ok. He’d found a brother.

  
***

Still, Keith didn’t make friends easily, and at this point it was better to not even try. Why bother? The Garrison had ruined any chance of that. The rules made it easy for him to blend in, but at the same time the system made it difficult to not stick out. He was driven, and so he shone, but he was, what did everyone say? _Off_. And so the only choice was to work to the top and leave everyone behind, lest he get trampled by his uncaring peers who would surely make his life hell if they got close enough to see what he was like.

He trained and pushed himself until he was so tense he might snap. Keith pushed himself so hard that even Shiro, his only friend in the world, didn’t see him much. He was up at the crack of dawn and went to bed well after the sun had set. He allowed himself a half an hour for lunch with Shiro, then confined himself to his room for some light reading before classes continued. No one else seemed to want to approach someone so dedicated to his work any, but Keith didn’t care. He didn’t know what it was about him made his undesirable, but he knew that he was. Why fight it?

This was what he _wanted_ , Keith told himself as he punched the bag with more force than strictly necessary. You are here because you want this.

Every night before he went to bed, while the others were either with their friends or long asleep, Keith kissed the top of Hobbes’ head and put him back in the front zipper pocket.

  
***

“He’s not dead!”

“Mr. Kogane, please, control yourself. We know this must be very upsetting-”

Keith slammed his right fist down on the desk. It hurt so much he half thought he might have broken a few fingers, but he was numb to it.

“Oh, bull _shit_. You don’t know _anything_.”

“ _Listen_ , we certainly know more than you, a student, and what’s more-”

“Clearly _not_ , otherwise you wouldn’t be telling me he’s dead. He’s _NOT_.”

He wasn’t. There was no way. They were lying, or had made a mistake, or a million other things that didn’t end in Shiro being gone.

“ _Mister_ Kogane.” The man across the desk took an audible deep breath. The veins in his forehead looked as though they were trying to escape, and his entire complexion more closely resembled a tomato than a human, but somehow he continued without yelling.

“Considering your, ah, emotional investment and _clear_ distress, I will be forced to recommend you be put on probation, at least for the time being. You should return to your dorm and regain your bearings before we discuss what we’ll be doing in the long term.”

“Forget it,” said Keith, slamming the table once more for good measure. “I quit.”

He stomped out of the room before the ticking time bomb of a general had the time to react. It took him two minutes to pack everything he needed into a duffle bag, with Hobbes gently place on top, of course. He left the Garrison without a snag - maybe because everyone was too afraid to stop him - and carried the duffel with just his right hand, satisfied by every ache.

  
***

The boy who once knew nothing but caution had become a hurricane. It wasn’t so much that he had learned to trust that the ground would be there to hold him; what he knew to be true was that nothing, not even the earth under his feet, could be counted on to stay. He’d figured out that if nothing was to be trusted, then there was nothing for it but to _go_. Whatever happened next would be up to him.

He wound up in a desert. Keith found it oddly fitting; deserts were desolate places, where the space between people was vast and the entire place felt barren and alone. He’d always been alone. Maybe here, a place whose defining trait was isolation, he could thrive.

He found an old abandoned shack and called it home. It wasn’t much, but it had a four walls and a roof, so it was enough. He could rebuild it.

Keith made a table out of an old board and cinder blocks. Sheets became shades, spare wood and nails a rocking chair, an old couch a bed. During the day he worked, meticulously searching through any and all evidence he could find. The walls became covered in a spreadsheet of newspaper clippings, charts, blurred photos, maps, and everything in between. Before dusk he sat on the porch in his hand-made rocking chair and read old comics, Hobbes in his lap.

It didn’t last.

This shouldn’t have been a surprise at this point, wasn’t really a surprise, if he was being honest with himself.

Just.

He was allowed to be happy, right? There wasn’t anything about him that made it so that he must be fundamentally miserable.

But the universe had yet again left him powerless. There had been a dust storm on the rise, Keith knew, and he’d boarded up the house as best he could to prepare. It had hit too fast, was the problem. Too fast and too strong.

He’d wrapped a blanket around himself to keep out the sand. Face covered, that was the most important part. Keith could hear the storm coming for him, crescendoing from a low rumble to a powerful roar, and against his better judgement he used his hands to squeeze his ears shut instead of the blanket.

And then - _WHOOMP_.

It was here.

Nothing is safe from a sandstorm, Keith learned very quickly. Nothing. It was darker than the night sky, all consuming and inescapable. He reached for Hobbes out of nerves and habit, but found that he wasn’t there.

Keith felt as though all the sand from the storm was swirling in his stomach, and not just because he was probably inhaling dangerous amounts.

_Where was Hobbes?_

He couldn’t move. Hobbes would be fine; he was probably on the couch, or on the bookshelf, or in the duffel.

_What if you left him outside?_

Keith would never… would he? The storm had come on quickly; could he have forgotten? No. Keith would never forget his best friend.

_But Hobbes is outside._

No.

_Yes._

Please…

_Keith. You killed your best friend._

He couldn’t argue with himself, especially when he was right. The sandstorm battered the rickety walls of the house and Keith curled in on himself, trapped, desperately trying to convince himself of something he already _knew_ wasn’t true.

When the storm passed, Keith knew because it was quiet. He’d valued silence all his life, but right now it was deafening. Keith scanned the room - no Hobbes. He flung open the door and looked around, but there was still no Hobbes in sight.

Keith ran over his small porch, digging in the sand for any sign of Hobbes. He hated how grainy it was; he hated that it was getting everywhere; he hated being so vulnerable and feeling like his whole body was filling with sand and that he was going to be eaten by this desert.

Like the sand storm, the frantic energy that possessed Keith came with gusto and left abruptly, leaving behind a husk of himself, devoid of anything but sand.

Keith stood up and walked slowly into the desert as though possessed, looked helplessly at the sky above him. For the first time in his life, the world was all his; no light pollution, no people, no blanket of sand, just him and the stars. There was nothing for miles but the sand dunes.

All this space and he was the only one for miles, so why did Keith still have no power at all?

“I’m significant!” Keith cried into the night, but the sky swallowed his plea. He curled up in a fetal position in the sand and let the desert swallow him too.

  
***

“Hello, Keith,” greet Allura softly.

“Hey,” he replied, not turning around to face her.

Keith needed time to be alone so as to not overwhelm himself, although that was a bit difficult, seeing as he was on an _alien planet_ and hadn’t been on Earth for two months. The paladins had gone to a space mall to restock on supplies and Keith was feeling a bit paralyzed. One day he’d been living by himself in the desert, almost completely isolated and hunting down a dead man; the next he was in space with flying super-lions, reunited with Shiro, living with an odd assortment of Garrison students and aliens. It was honestly a little much. How do you go from being alone to living with _six_ other people, hopping from planet to planet?

He took a random plush off of the display rack and absentmindedly rubbed it. This was an Earth-esk store, and they seemed to be trying as hard as they could to combine the feel of a museum gift shop with a drug store. It smelled like new clothes, slightly stale candy, and that grape cough syrup he hated as a kid. It smelled like things that should have made him happily nostalgic, but mostly just made him sad.

Allura put her hand on his shoulder and Keith tensed. “Does that small stuffed creature remind you of Earth? Would you like it?”

“No,” he said, reaching to put it back. “It’s ok.”

“You know, on Altea, we used to have comfort animals as children. I used to sleep with mine next to me, until I became too old. Is that something else we share, Earth and Altea?”

A lump rose in Keith’s throat. “Yes,” he tried to say, but it came out waveringly.

“Are you alright?” Allura retracted her hand nervously. “Have I upset you?”

“No,” said Keith, strangled. “No. Just thinking of - of an old friend.”

“I see.”

They were quiet for a while after that. Keith took in large breaths and circled his thumb around the stuffed animal in his hands. Allura didn’t attempt to comfort him, but she didn’t leave either, and that in and of itself was an almost overwhelmingly kind gesture.

Eventually, she spoke. “I have a great idea!” Allura clasped her hands together excitedly. “Why don’t we get an animal for all of the team members? It could make the castle feel more like a home.”

Keith looked at her. “I thought we were in the middle of a war? Haven’t you been pushing us?”

“No one has ever won a war without moral. There is no harm in indulging our softer sides every once in a while. They’re there to fall back on so that when we get back up, we get up stronger.”

“If our knees aren’t green by the end of the day, we should seriously re-examine our lives,” he whispered, almost reflexively.

“What?” said Allura, purplexed.

“Nothing. Just something similar I remember another old friend saying.”

“You seem to have many good old friends,” Allura said, smilingly softly. She gently patted the stuffed animal in his hand. “Maybe you should listen to them.”

Keith looked from her to the plush. Before he hadn’t bothered to look at it, but now he saw that he’d been holding a hippo. It was smaller than Hobbes had been, but just as soft and huggable. It was gray - Hobbes had been red - and it wasn’t even a cat, but maybe Keith needed a change of pace. Maybe this was what healing was supposed to feel like.

“I’ll take it,” he said, and he and Allura smiled at each other.

“Does it have a name?” she asked.

Abandoning the past and moving on were too different things, Keith decided. And he was ready to move on.

“His name is Hobbes.”

**Author's Note:**

> GUESS I GOTTA INCLUDE THEIR CRYOPOD ANIMALS IN EVERYTHIGN I WRITE NOW HAHAHA (i just think its really cute ok dont judge. if youre curious, they got the other paladins the animals from that same quiz; lance a shark, shiro a cat, etc.)  
> that last quote about green knees was basically calvin saying you should enjoy life. also, keith screaming at the sky "im significant" was also from the comics. the influences are more subtle than i intended, but they're there  
> for real though, i hope that you enjoyed this fic. it took a lot of time to write, and there are still some iffy spots, but that's always the case. in any case, i hope i was able to make you feel something! thank you for taking the time to read :)


End file.
